Poems of To-Day: an Anthology Part 18

_John Davidson._

81. NOVEMBER BLUE

The golden tint of the electric lights seems to give a complementary colour to the air in the early evening.--_Essay on London_.

O heavenly colour, London town Has blurred it from her skies; And, hooded in an earthly brown, Unheaven'd the city lies.

No longer standard-like this hue Above the broad road flies; Nor does the narrow street the blue Wear, slender pennon-wise.

But when the gold and silver lamps Colour the London dew, And, misted by the winter damps, The shops s.h.i.+ne bright anew-- Blue comes to earth, it walks the street, It dyes the wide air through; A mimic sky about their feet, The throng go crowned with blue.

_Alice Meynell._

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82. PHILOMEL IN LONDON

Not within a granite pa.s.s, Dim with flowers and soft with gra.s.s-- Nay, but doubly, trebly sweet In a poplared London street, While below my windows go Noiseless barges, to and fro, Through the night's calm deep, Ah! what breaks the bonds of sleep?

No steps on the pavement fall, Soundless swings the dark ca.n.a.l; From a church-tower out of sight Clangs the central hour of night.

Hark! the Dorian nightingale!

Pan's voice melted to a wail!

Such another bird Attic Tereus never heard.

Hung above the gloom and stain-- London's squalid cope of pain-- Pure as starlight, bold as love, Honouring our scant poplar-grove, That most heavenly voice of earth Thrills in pa.s.sion, grief or mirth, Laves our poison'd air Life's best song-bath crystal-fair.

While the starry minstrel sings Little matters what he brings, Be it sorrow, be it pain, Let him sing and sing again,

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Till, with dawn, poor souls rejoice, Wakening, once to hear his voice, Ere afar he flies, Bound for purer woods and skies.

_Edmund Gosse._

83. ANNUS MIRABILIS (1902)

Daylight was down, and up the cool Bare heaven the moon, o'er roof and elm, Daughter of dusk most wonderful, Went mounting to her realm: And night was only half begun Round Edwardes Square in Kensington.

A Sabbath-calm possessed her face, An even glow her bosom filled; High in her solitary place The huntress-heart was stilled: With bow and arrows all laid down She stood and looked on London town.

Nay, how can sight of us give rest To that far-travelled heart, or draw The musings of that tranquil breast?

I thought--and gazing, saw Far up above me, high, oh, high, From south to north a heron fly!

Oh, swiftly answered! yonder flew The wings of freedom and of hope!

Little of London town he knew, The far horizon was his scope.

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High up he sails, and sees beneath The glimmering ponds of Hampstead Heath,

Hendon, and farther out afield Low water-meads are in his ken, And lonely pools by Harrow Weald, And solitudes unloved of men, Where he his fisher's spear dips down: Little he knows of London town.

So small, with all its miles of sin, Is London to the grey-winged bird, A cuckoo called at Lincoln's Inn Last April; in Soho was heard The missel-thrush with throat of glee, And nightingales at Battersea!

_Laurence Housman._

84. FLEET STREET

I never see the newsboys run Amid the whirling street, With swift untiring feet, To cry the latest venture done, But I expect one day to hear Them cry the crack of doom And risings from the tomb, With great Archangel Michael near; And see them running from the Fleet As messengers of G.o.d, With Heaven's tidings shod About their brave unwearied feet.

_Shane Leslie._

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86. IN THE MEADOWS AT MANTUA

But to have lain upon the gra.s.s One perfect day, one perfect hour, Beholding all things mortal pa.s.s Into the quiet of green gra.s.s;

But to have lain and loved the sun, Under the shadow of the trees, To have been found in unison, Once only, with the blessed sun;

Ah! in these flaring London nights, Where midnight withers into morn, How quiet a rebuke it writes Across the sky of London nights!

Upon the gra.s.s at Mantua These London nights were all forgot.

They wake for me again: but ah, The meadow-gra.s.s at Mantua!

_Arthur Symons._

86. LEISURE

What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pa.s.s, Where squirrels hide their nuts in gra.s.s.

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No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars, like skies at night.